None can question the devotion of Emperor Alphonse, the destroyer of Golden Horde.Under his rule, the Imperium of Persia brought Rome under its rule, and seems nigh unstoppable.By all accounts that man was a Living Saint....

Here's a challenge for you dude. Start a campaign as 'Eric the Heathen' in Sweden, during the Stanford bridge start. At that point in time, he's like, the last major Norse ruler (brother of the king of Sweden in this case and in charge of the weaker half of the kingdom). I did it once before, and managed to take control of the kingdom through skulduggery, and start expanding Norse influence again. Lost the saves somewhere along the way. I keep trying to Ironman that start over again, but I keep getting raped. Like, 30 starts all end in failure as the king turns on me early or starts revoking my titles. I really wanted to do a resurgent Norse Jihad in primarily christian times campaign (its way to easy in the old gods dlc), but alas, I keep getting murdered. If anybody could pull it off, it would be you. And it would be hilarious. Biggest challenge is that you can only marry other Norse, and those are pretty few and far between at that point (so better work on converting people early).

The historical start right after that (forgot its name) actually has him as an independent kingdom at war with Sweden. But every time I try that my armies are murdered by everybody else and put down pretty quick, so that really seems impossible (but maybe you can make it work).

Somebody has to make it work!

"My great-grandfather did not travel across four thousand miles of the Atlantic Ocean to see this nation overrun by immigrants. He did it because he killed a man back in Ireland. That's the rumor."-Stephen Colbert

Here's a challenge for you dude. Start a campaign as 'Eric the Heathen' in Sweden, during the Stanford bridge start.

Afraid to say, it's quite near impossible.There are several reasons for this - you are a Norse heretic in the middle of Catholic alliance.The whole Scandinavia will pile in on you - and there's no easy way out since the Jews are inaccessible to Pagans - and income / levy is pathetic.If your victory condition includes the resurrection of Norse faith - I'd say it's damn hard. My advice is to convert to Catholic and just make a baby before shit gets out of hand.

Yeah, I think they patched it or changed something. I swear, back when the old gods dlc was just released, I gave it a go. It wasn't to hard for me to take over the kingdom (started a faction to put me on the throne, bribed or influenced enough people to join, and the king stepped down when I demanded rather than risk war). I was able to then consolidate my hold, and expand out a bit and take most of Norway. After that things got tricky as I started getting crusades declared against me a lot, but it still seemed manageable if I put the effort in. I got distracted and forgot about the game, and now the saves are long gone.

Now it seems totally impossible, no matter what I do. The king and everybody turns on you too fast. Alas, seems like it would have been a fun game to fully playthrough.

"My great-grandfather did not travel across four thousand miles of the Atlantic Ocean to see this nation overrun by immigrants. He did it because he killed a man back in Ireland. That's the rumor."-Stephen Colbert

Quite tough, but with proper exploitation of gameplay mechanics (and restarting a few times until you get a good enough ruler) it's possible.

Preparation: Absolutely do set the "Become king" ambition, as that free 1000 prestige will be invaluable later on.

Step 1: Abuse the faction system, especially the fact that hired mercenaries get added to your faction strength. So wait until the king raises CA to medium, by then you should have enough cash to buy the cheapest (70 gold) merc company. Don't worry that you can't afford them for long. Hire everything you have and start a faction to install yourself as king. Press the claim and hope for the chance of the king accepting.

Step 2: Now you have the crown, but everyone in your kingdom and outside hates you and will do their best to kick you down again. What to do? Ooh, look at that 1000 prestige we just got. Perfect to start a prepared invasion against Denmark. This will give us a ton of event troops over the next 2 years, shielding us from the worst of it. While everyone is still arriving, go raiding for $$$. Denmark was still caught up in the war over England, so they kindly donated to their own invasion.

Now just use your money and invasion troops to win the war against Denmark and your own factions, and enjoy a much more interesting position. I've got a lot of land to fill up with loyal Norsemen and my most troublesome vassals are in jail.

This was in Ironman, so apart from the restarts at the beginning (to get the king to surrender to the faction), no reloading is required for this. (A bit of luck possibly)

After good King Erik had claimed his rightful crown and taught those nasty Danes a lesson, he moved his throne down to the old danish capital and started stabilizing the realm. Both Norway and those filthy Catholics inside the realm were still a threat.

On the side, Erik managed to produce three sons, which made things a little difficult when he fell over from old age. For his oldest and strongest son Rolf would gain the royal crown, but the law of Gavelkind would arrange the lands to make a very weak king. Rolfs lands would be limited to what his brothers claimed to be "the traditional capital", i.e. an undeveloped backwater providing a total of 400 troops.

Unable to withstand a civil war with that kind of manpower, Rolf used the royal purse to keep things under control. A bunch of coin and titles convinced his brothers that it would be much more comfortable to enjoy their inheritance without trying for the crown.

But then Gavelkind was always meant to encourage expansion, so expand he did. For Rolf had a plan: To restore the true faith to its old glory, and beyond. So he used a lot of raiding, county conquests and diplomatic trickery to grow both Sweden and the reputation of the Norse faith.

The most troublesome war came when Norway declared a Holy War and called the evil empire to the south into it. Fortunately, a bunch of mercenaries were able to demolish the Norwegian armies quickly enough that their King agreed to a white peace before the Emperor could bring all of his hordes up north.

Finally, in 1120 it was time: As no one could doubt the revival of the Norse faith he had delivered, it was his right to bring about his Norse reformation. He would now guide the Norsemen as the Fylkir, the living descendant of Odin and lead them against the kings under the cross.

(That was quite fun. From this point on the game shouldn't be a big problem anymore though)

Awesome man! That's great you managed to pull it off that far. I'm shitty with the mechanics of the game, so forgot that getting mercs helps you with factional negotiation strength in the short term. I'll try out some of your strategy to see what I can pull off with an Ironman. I kind of sort of made a crazy world with my non-ironman old gods Norse start. But I really want to see what can be done with a later start, then transitioned to EUIV. Thanks again for showing it can be done and the good write up!

"My great-grandfather did not travel across four thousand miles of the Atlantic Ocean to see this nation overrun by immigrants. He did it because he killed a man back in Ireland. That's the rumor."-Stephen Colbert